


you are in the southern sun

by youtiao



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Ambiguity, Jongdae's Birthday Week 2020, M/M, Magic Realism, Sailors, lowkey calypso AU ??? ?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26368714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youtiao/pseuds/youtiao
Summary: When Junmyeon was 16, he washed up on an island.
Relationships: Kim Jongdae | Chen/Kim Junmyeon | Suho
Comments: 28
Kudos: 46
Collections: Challenge #7 — Out of Order





	you are in the southern sun

**Author's Note:**

> written for tinysparks 
> 
> title from 马頔 - [南山南](https://youtu.be/7PpJVucG6do)

The tavern is full, these times of day. 

Junmyeon can hear the bustling from his dark inn room, chaotic, smelling of beer and fried fish. It starts as soon as the Sun touches the horizon. These times of day, the tavern itself becomes alive. 

He waits until the floor thumps with song, until the building sways with dance, and picks himself up off his bed, padding down rickety stairs. He slips against the bar, faceless, nameless, a wry smile on his lips. He drinks until he feels the bubbles in his eyes, and then he climbs rickety stairs to a bed that’s become somewhat of a _home_ for the past week. He slumbers until the Sun wakes him, Her hands brushing his cheek. 

Ha. _Home_. A meaningless word to a wanderer. Junmyeon chuckles to himself, lacing his fingers around his mug. His last copper piece had gone toward the wine he currently nurses. If he had been younger, maybe he’d try to flirt another out of another patron of the bar.

But he’s no longer young. 

Well. He’ll have to leave tomorrow, with no coin to pay for his room. _Yes_ , he thinks, turning his head toward the open window, _I’ll leave tomorrow_. At dawn, sailing into the Sun’s embrace. 

“Hey. Hey!” He’s staring at the moths buzzing about the lamps, so he doesn’t notice. He doesn’t think he’s being addressed. People don’t tend to talk to him, and he doesn’t mind. 

They touch his arm, and he startles. 

“ _You_ look like you have a good story,” they say, scooting their chair over to Junmyeon. He blinks. They stare expectantly, chin rested on their folded hands. Behind them, their group also watches, expectant. 

He shrugs. “‘m a vagabond,” he says, voice hoarse from disuse. “Nothing good here.” 

“A traveler!” they say, excitement colouring their words. “Come, come, I’ll buy you a drink if you tell us stories. Us, we’ve never been away from this town, so. Please, sir. Tell us of the seas, the mountains, the valleys.” And Junmyeon’s seen the seas, the mountains, the valleys, and he wonders how bored one must be to want to hear about them. 

He’s no artist, he can’t paint pictures with his words. “You’ll be disappointed,” he laughs. 

  
Then tell us your story, the boy says, wheat tucked in the corner of his mouth. He sighs, smiles, warmed by the wine. 

You’ll be disappointed, he says again, but alright. 

  
When Junmyeon was 16, he ran from home. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. A fight he doesn’t remember. He stole his father’s boat and sailed off. 

(“And well, I was unlucky, got caught in a storm that blew me out of familiar waters,” he says, fondly, but he remembers, clear as day, the panic that flooded him, as his boat flooded.) 

He’d clung to the boat as long as he could. But eventually, like everything, it left him, sinking to the clutches of the sea. He’d never been scared of the ocean until then, struggling to keep his head above water, sipping salt. 

Somewhere along the line, he simply stopped paddling. 

When he woke, it was not in the Afterlife, but on a beach. He’d gasped wetly, touching his chest to make sure his heart still beat. And then he saw the loveliest person he’d ever seen, curled hair and curled lips. Gold eyes like twin miniature suns. “Hello,” the boy had said. He had been barefoot. 

“Hello,” Junmyeon’d responded. “Thank you for saving me.” 

“You’re welcome,” the boy said. “I’m Chen. And you are?” 

  
“Chen, he... let me stay a while. Built me a new boat.” He doesn’t say the boat is the one he uses to this day. “And then I left.” 

He looks ‘round the table, at the boys watching with wide eyes. “What?” 

“That’s all?” someone is brave enough to say. 

“That’s all,” he chuckles. “I told you. Disappointing, isn’t it?” 

“Aw, you really _are_ bad at storytelling,” another comments. “You know, I was expecting a love story, from the way you looked when you described Chen’s eyes.” 

Junmyeon just laughs. 

  
When Junmyeon was 16, he washed up on Chen’s island. You know how that one goes. 

When Junmyeon was 17, Chen kissed him for the first time. They’d been sat on the overhang on the edge of the island, letting the spray kiss the soles of their feet. A conversation he does not remember. 

What he does remember, though, is the way the sunset fell over Chen’s face, lighting him gold. What he does remember, is how Chen tasted of cherries, the ones they ate as they climbed the hill. 

When Junmyeon was 18, Chen took him to bed. It was the anniversary of his washing-up on the island, as told by the tallies on Chen’s wall. His walls were covered in tallies. “How long have you been here?” Junmyeon asked, breathless as Chen straddled him, kissed him like he was the air he needed to live. 

“You don’t need to know,” Chen had murmured. 

And when Junmyeon was 19, he left. 

“Come with me,” he begged, as the waves tugged at his boat. Chen does not look at him. He’s never not looked him in the eye, and he aches, wanting to see those miniature-sun eyes. “Please, come with me.” 

“I cannot.” 

  
He sails for days. Weeks. His only direction is _south_ , written on a scrap of paper. _If you need me, sail south_. He’s long run out of food, has but a sip of water per day, but something out there wants him alive. He wonders, delirious, if it’s his god Chen. 

And eventually, he hits land. There’s a boy standing on the beach, barefoot. Curled hair, white with sea-salt, curled lips, sweet like cherries. 

“Welcome back,” Chen smiles. His eyes are twin miniature suns, and as Junmyeon lets his boat float off, as the sun slips into the sea, Chen kisses him, and his eyes form twin crescent moons. 

When Junmyeon is _old_ , he returns. 

**Author's Note:**

> thx for reading! stay cool B) 
> 
> [here on chwitter](https://twitter.com/02sheep)


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